Let’s talk about that feeling you get that rises in your chest and then expands and chokes you in the eye when you see someone post a dreamy vacation on social media. You ask yourself, “why can’t that be me?”
You may then start looking for flights. Next thing you know, you’ve booked a trip without much thinking. Things add up. Hotels are expensive. You get tickets to museums and places to see. And by the end of the year, you find out that travel has put a huge dent in your savings.
I totally get it. I love vacationing and travel! I have been to more than 40 countries before I turned 40. I spent a lot of money doing so.
If you love travel, you have to make it a priority in your budget
Like all things, I tell people to put a couple of items as priorities when budgeting their spending. However, recognize that whatever you cannot fit as a priority, you have to save.
Travel is a luxury, and when you are saving money, luxuries have to be sacrificed
If you don’t drink water and eat food, you are going to die. If you don’t have a safe bed to sleep in, your life is significantly changed. Travel comes after a lot of basic necessities. When you have to save a lot of money, it is one of those areas where you have to make sacrifices.
A gorgeous travel photo does not mean happiness
If social media plays a big role in your life, then you likely have tried to take photos and share them to get likes. However, that is a short term high, and does not necessarily mean long lasting joy. As one world traveler shared with me
“I used to travel a lot. And I bragged about it to hide the fact that I was unhappy and in a bad relationship. Just because you see someone somewhere glamorous, does not mean that they are happy!”
Someone who travels a lot is not necessarily wealthy
Remember when you see vacation photos, you are seeing what people spent, not what they have saved. Fancy dinner? Mentally add a price tag of $100. Fancy hotel? Probably $300 or more a night. Now there are travelers who use hotel points and air miles to pay for their travel (I do that), but by and large, travel does not come free! How do you know that people have money to retire? You don’t!
If there is an individual (or several) that constantly share things that make you envy their life, unfollow them. Yep, it’s easy, just a couple of clicks and you can tune them out. It does not mean that you don’t like them as people, but how they share their life might be toxic to your financial health. You have to be selfish and look out for your own money first.
Very few people share unhappy things on social media
This was me on my honeymoon to Paris. Gorgeous photo, right? I fought with my husband nearly every day on this trip. In order to save money, we ate sandwiches – even fast food – for meals. I packed little bags of crackers. I cannot tell you how many times we passed mouth watering restaurants and had to keep walking. We did have one nice meal, but I felt unhappy because I had way higher expectations for our honeymoon! I thought we would have a luxury trip.
Two years later as we became one of the very few, very lucky people, to own a fabulous home in Manhattan, and now, the honeymoon is a great memory, but I could not see that at the time. I realized we did not splurge all the way for this trip, because there was a bigger goal that gave us more joy every single day of our lives – rather than just one week.
We choose to share – and remember – the best parts. Since we only see people sharing the best parts, when we experience negative emotions on our trips, we can often feel frustrated. So, check yourself.
It is all relative
Remember that if you do get to go on a trip – someone else in your life might look at that and say, that “that is amazing!”
